Wattle Fence Finished, And Other News

It was a long job and hard on the fingernails, but it's done. The wattle fence looks like it was made by a drunken, learning-disabled Saxon peasant, but it fulfills its purpose--to distract the eye from the ugly wire mesh beneath--admirably.

This morning I heard one of the pullets talking to herself, and she was making grownup hen sounds. When did this happen? When did she go from a childish peeping to an adult vocabulary? It seems to have happened overnight, but I suspect this kind of thing happens gradually in hens, as it does in roosters. How did I miss it? Listen better, look more closely, I am forever telling myself. But I miss things all the time.

Had a happy two hours carving slate. The sun was already hot at 10 a.m., so I moved my outdoor carving stand under the big white ash tree and had a good time with mallet and chisel. This means, first and foremost, that I managed not to chip any body parts off the figure. But also, in a wordless, instinctive way, I'm starting to understand new things about bas relief carving, that strange kingdom between 3-D sculpture and painting.

It was so beautiful out there this morning--sky, birds, grass, etc. that I kept saying to myself: this is another one of those deathbed moments--the supremely satisfying, simple times whose memory will console me when I am in extremis. I note that at least two of these times--the other one being picking dandelions for wine in the company of grazing goats--are moments in May, in Vermont.

A quote from a Catalan poet came to me while I was carving. My father used it as the title of one of his early compositions: "Doneu-me solitud, doneu-me natura," (Give me solitude, give me Nature). Under my white ash tree, I had plenty of both. My father would have loved this place.

The climbing rosebushes I planted (my first ever) are still alive, and the garlic cloves I stuck in the ground all around them as a kind of charm are coming up.

Left Bisou uncrated and unsupervised in the house for almost three hours this afternoon. Returned to find everything in order. Didn't think we'd ever make it this far.

Putting Pullets To Bed

Today I released the new pullets into the society of the four older hens, and into the wide open spaces of the regular pen and the much larger temporary pen that is attached to it. I watched for a while and made sure that my placid Buff Orpingtons had no desire to murder the new arrivals, then left them to get acquainted.

You should know that yesterday one of the little Barred Rocks died. I found her by the feeder, with no signs of external trauma, but dead as a door nail. I performed our usual dead livestock ritual and flung her into the woods. I checked the spot today and sure enough, she was gone--a good meal for baby racoons or fox kits or God knows what. Still, her death upset me. I've never lost a young chicken, not even that most fragile of creatures, a day-old chick.

I half expected to find the remaining three pullets in extremis this morning, but they seemed fine, and I decided it was time for them to experience not only the society of the older hens, but direct sunshine. They thought this was imprudent nonsense, and quickly scurried under the shed, where they spent this entire glorious April day in the dark, huddled and peeping.

7:00 p.m. I go to check on them. They are nowhere to be seen, or heard. Possibly, I worry, whoever has gotten their dead sister has come back for more. I entice the older hens into their room by means of that opiate--sunflower seeds--to get them out of the way. Then I peer under the shed and see a flash of yellow leg--the pullets are there, in the darkest recesses. I need to get them out of there, up the steps, and into their room for the night.

Armed with a handful of Chick Grower crumbles, I sprinkle some just beyond the shed. Miracle of miracles, they hear the crumbles fall and come out of their refuge. I sprinkle more of the stuff on the steps and sit down to wait.

There is nothing more frustrating than waiting for a chicken to come inside a building. The first thing she does is walk away, but just as you are about to give up hope she turns her head, then takes a couple of steps in the right direction. You coo encouragement, but she doesn't like that, and goes back where she started. Seeming to sense your despair, however, she pecks her way slowly towards you, then stops, turns around, pecks some more....

I run out of patience. I turn on the light in the chicken house, hoping that the energy-saver bulb will function as a beacon pointing the way home, and go inside to start dinner. I really don't want those pullets to spend the night outdoors.

7:55 p.m. It is still light. I go back out to the shed--no pullets in sight, but I hear desperate cheepings from way over near the wood pile. And that is where they are, huddled and pathetic, so much so that they let me pick them up (usually it's not that easy to catch a chicken in daylight) and carry them to the shed. There is a thick bed of nice clean hay for them, clean water, more Chick Grower crumbles. And a door that I close against weasels, foxes, owls, raccoons, possums, rats, bears, mountain lions ("catamounts" in these parts), coyotes, coydogs, dogs, fisher cats, bobcats and house cats.

The New Girls

They are blond and trim and lively. Their combs haven't fully developed, so their heads look disproportionately small, even for a chicken. They stick together like a gaggle of eighth-grade girls at the mall. I have named them Do, Re, Mi, and Fa.

No rooster, you ask? No successor to Charlemagne? No bridegroom to greet the sun, to point out worms, to watch for hawks, to lead the way to the roost at night, and...do what bridegrooms do?

It's the last that is the problem. Roosters do it so indefatigably that they need at least eight wives to (in the words of the Catholic Church regarding the secondary function of marriage) “allay concupiscence.” Otherwise you end up with a bunch of bedraggled, de-feathered, freaked-out hens. So no rooster this time—just the virginal quartet. There is a kind of conventual peace about a rooster-less flock, and I am looking forward to that.

I am also looking forward to eggs, lots of eggs. Young hens lay an egg a day, even in the cold and dark of winter. And that time of year is not far off. For weeks now, ever since the solstice, I've watched for the yellowing of the tips of certain trees and bushes. In our field the Saint John's Wort (so named because it blooms on Saint John's feast day, June 21) has given way to goldenrod and Queen Anne's lace. The sunflowers are in bloom, and there's a melon-sized pumpkin on the vine.

But there's still plenty of time for Do, Re, Mi and Fa to fatten up on bugs and snails before the first frost. Right now the pullets are locked up in the shed, but tomorrow I will move them to their summer quarters, the portable coop in the field. Kept from going astray by a movable fence, they will dig dust baths, feign alarm at imaginary dangers, and generally disport themselves. And one day, when the foliage has begun to turn for real, I will look in the nest and find the first small, dusty-pink egg.